Finally, catching up with the blog.  My “blogging” computer died at sea and I was very tempted to bury it there as well.  An old Dell laptop, the hard drive finally failed catastrophically, so we were left without the ability to send updates (the shortwave radio doesn’t easily conform to Macs).  Today, I’m going to buy a new, cheap, PC laptop for future communications.  But for now, I have internet access with my trusty MacBook Pro (yay, Apple!)

So…since Santa Cruz harbor…we waited out a couple days last week due to large waves/short period (in the 13 foot, 12 second range) and finally left on Thursday morning deciding to go direct to Santa Cruz Island which would be an almost two day trip.  Once out on Monterey Bay, the wind and waves came up and we had a glorious 24 hours of 8-10 foot waves and 18-20 knot winds, both out of the NW.  Truly some great sailing and after a beautiful sunset, a full moon rising over the coast and starlit sky that were stunning.

Captain Ann had her first “solo” night watches and was stellar.  She was enjoying the moon and stars so much she let me sleep a little extra through her watch.

That was the first 24 hours.  The second day, not so fun.  Clouds came in and the wind clocked around (not in the forecast at all) and turned to the SE.  Of course, right smack from the direction we wanted to go and a fairly unusual direction for this time of year.  Our only resort since we’re on a bit of a schedule at this point due to a late departure from Berkeley was to motor-sail, otherwise we would still be out there tacking back and forth.  So motor-sail we did down the coast until Pt. Conception.  About 15 miles off Pt. Conception, I was sound asleep when Ann shouted down from the cockpit that we had run into some fog.  I got up, stuck my head out of the hatch and WOW, we really ran into the fog.  Couldn’t see more than about 50 yards.  Very disconcerting when visibility drops that low.  Turned on the radar changed course 90 degrees to angle back offshore as well as head closer to our destination and we ran for about two hours with Ann driving and me watching the radar for boats and ships.  Not much fun.  In retrospect I really should have done a 180 degree turn and just stayed further offshore.

The other thing about the second half of the trip was the waves.  They changed from a nice downhill ride to something more resembling a vicious carnival ride.  They were such that we were only half joking that we going to rename “Charisma” to “Lurch”.  The NW swell was down a bit to 5-6 feet, but it was colliding directly with a Southerly swell of about 3 feet to produce a confused sea.  You rode down halfway from the top of a nice NW swell then suddenly slammed into the southerly sea and were thrown up in the air and then splashed back down.  Very uncomfortable and we were glad to have our harnesses and tethers firmly attached to the boat.

Anyway, after about 40 hours, half of which was glorious sailing, at 0700 we made it to Forney’s Cove on the NE tip of Santa Cruz Island, about 20 miles off Santa Barbara.  Dropped anchor and quickly went to sleep for about four hours to recharge.  Spent a delightful afternoon anchored, lazing in the sun, enjoying the view of this beautiful cove.  Later in the day, while having dinner in the cockpit, we saw a bald eagle fly right over the boat.

Decided to leave at 1800 for Redondo Beach (as it’s a 14 hour trip), so Ann and I could spend a couple days with her sister Joan and family before making the final push to San Diego another 14 hours!

So, “Charisma” is sitting right now at the King Harbor Yacht Club in Redondo Beach (where we stopped last year on the way North)  Great hospitality from these nice folks!

Heading out now to try and get the new laptop, so we’ll see how that goes.

Sitting at anchor on Santa Cruz Island